Young Blonde Girl At The Swimming Pool With A Towel And Blue Air Mattress

In the early 20th century, especially in Australia, ocean pools, were built typically on headlands by enclosing part of the rock shelf, with water circulated through the pools by flooding from tidal tanks or by regular flooding over the side of the pools at high tide. This continued a pre-European tradition of bathing in rockpools, or bogey holes with many of the current sites being expanded from sites used by Australian Aboriginies. Bathing in these pools provided security against both rough surf and against sharks. There were often separate pools for women and men, or the pool was open to the sexes at different times with a break for bathers to come without fear of observation by the other sex. Segregated changing sheds and showers are provided. These were the fore-runners of modern 'Olympic' pools. A variation was the later development of sea- or harbour-side pools that circulated sea water using pumps. A pool of this type was the training ground for Australian Olympian Dawn Fraser.
There are currently about 100 ocean baths in New South Wales, which can range from small pools roughly 25 metres long and "Olympic Sized" (50m) to the very large, such as the 50x100m baths in Newcastle. Whilst most a free, a number charge fees, such as the Icebergs pool at Bondi Beach. Despite the development of chlorinated and heated pools, ocean baths remain a popular form of recreation in New South Wales. They have also provided a popular object of study for photographers.